Rant-Writing

     It's Rant-day, a day when rants overshadow the traditional Mon, Tues, Wednes, -days. These Rant-days can happen any time. We hide rants, subdue rants, put rants off, or vent rants. Yet the best rants are banked- rants...rants that are saved up. Banked-rants are tucked away in a vault, a brain vault that accrue interest. We make rant-deposits and the rant-account grows and grows until the top of our head explodes and our brains splatter all over the walls...or in the case of this blog, all over the windows. I wonder what that would look like from the other side of the closed window, window number three. Suppose I were outside looking in and you, the ranter, were on the verge of your head exploding. Your skull would look like a balloon ready to fracture, face red, cheeks puffed, eyes bulging, hair straight out like a new spiked-out style.
    So rather than risk my own head exploding, I formally declared this day, to-day, Rant-day. In accordance with official rules of Rant-day, there must be at least ten rants and they must be listed in ascending order of Rant-power. And these rants must be purged in descending order. This is important in that by the time rant number one is revealed, the previous, lesser rants have made room inside the brain for contraction, deflation as it were. Can you imagine what would happen if the number one rant were expelled in proper rant-fashion and with the brain in such a stretched out state? Complete collapse, like a Black Hole where the brain deflates so fast and so completely that it sucks in everything around from the outside...the outside becomes the inside and you end up wearing your inside out. My head hurts.

For today, Rant-day, having expelled other rants...a rant-expulsion, I can now reveal my number one rant--squirrels. Today, squirrels take precedent over the top rants like baggy-assed britches, people parked in the passing lane, hangovers, cops driving 100 mph while driving with their knee and talking on a cell phone, and Cadillacs and IPODs at the Welfare office. 

squir·rel  (skwûrl, skwr-)

n.

1. Any of various arboreal rodents of the genus Sciurus and related genera of the family Sciuridae, having a long flexible bushy tail and including the fox squirrel, gray squirrel, and red squirrel. Also called tree squirrel.

2. Any of various other rodents of the family Sciuridae, as the ground squirrel or the flying squirrel.

3. The fur of one of these rodents.

tr.v. squir·reled or squir·relled, squir·rel·ing or squir·rel·ling, squir·rels

To hide or store: squirreled away her money.

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[Middle English squirel, from Anglo-Norman esquirel, from Vulgar Latin *scriolus, diminutive of *scrius, alteration of Latin scirus, from Greek skiouros : ski, shadow + our, tail; see ors- in Indo-European roots.]

Please notice the words rodent and vulgar in the definition.

I hate squirrels. Squirrels are a razor and a shave away from a rat. My neighborhood is infested with squirrels. There are many who think they are sooo cute. "Awww, look at how cute and furry they are. "  Squirrels dig. They dig like dogs dig...nose buried, front paws scratching furiously in the dirt, that dirt being flung in clouds of black stuff which lands in displaced piles all over freshly placed cedar mulch. What are they digging for you ask? Flower bulbs. Those expensive living balls that are delicately placed in the dirt and with the warmpth of the Sun, some moisture from the clouds, and a bit of coaxing, they produce plants and flowers. I love flowers and squirrels selfishly deprive me of that adoration.

But I have found a cure for squirrels...paintball. Yes folks, paintball. I am the proud owner of a paintball gun. It sits rightfully with my collection of guns. I have a 22, a 33-33, a 12 gauge, a 30-06, a 22 pistol, a 44 magnum revolver, a 22-250, there are more...and ammo, lots of ammo...and no you can't have my address. My trusty paintball gun sits right alongside of these beauties. Since I live in a neighborhood, we cannot actually shoot these hairy rats, splatter their insides out...oh forbid, that would be cruel...I whack them with paintballs. Paintballs seem ok with most neighbors...except the neighbor in back. He is a soul with two spirits. He didn't like me whacking squirrels with paintballs...told me it was gross and inhuman and that we have long since evolved from cavemen. He doesn't know about my gun collection. It's a rat...a rat with an orange spot on his side. A marked, owned, and disgraced rodent. I wonder if there is some caste system within the squirrel world where they dispel and shun squirrels who look different...much like we humans do? "Oh look, Chuck. There's Peter. His orange spot is so disgusting. Let's run him out of the tree."

So, after a year of testing this method of squirrel control, I can safely say that although they do err occasionally and find their way over my fence, for the most part, squirrels keep to the neighbors yard these days. And although I hate squirrels and lay patiently in wait for one of the forgetful rats to scamper within range, I feel I have scored a monumentous victory for mankind. Sometimes when I get home late at night, after rant-venting over a few too many pints on a Rant-day, I stand in the middle of my back yard and turn in the direction of my neighbor, the one with two spirit. Wearing only a  loin-cloth and horned helmet, in the ancient ritual of my ancestors, I raise the paintball gun over my head like a war-worn sword, and fire off a long volley into the quiet midnight air...and with my face turned toward the heavens, I let out an blood thirsty victory yell that would make Odin and Beowulf proud.        I have--conquered the squirrel.